Wednesday, August 20, 2008

London Free Press Editor-in-Chief Paul Berton opines that "people across the country are watching London" after Council's "noble experiment" to ban the sale of bottled water on city-owned property was approved this week. Just what they are watching for is uncertain from Berton's editorial, probably even to those same people across the country who may or may not be aware that they are watching, but then they are not actually newspaper editors.

If anyone aside from journalists is watching in reality, it is that same undifferentiated mass of municipal politicians, bureaucrats and activists that hops aboard any prohibitionist bandwagon to come along the media track from anywhere else. For every civic leader there are a thousand followers calling themselves leaders, as the Thames Valley School Board and the City of Toronto are reported to be considering similar bans just days after London Council's decision. But do politicians and journalists have so little shame as not even to try to hide their mutual dependence? or their proportionate disengagement from the public?

In related hydrating news, the London Free Press reports that fruit juices can depress the absorption of some prescription drugs into the bloodstream. Tap water it is then! Although when David Miller claims that tap water is purer than bottled water, one might prefer to take one's chances with dehydration instead.

London council's publicity stunt was the subject of a locally written story in Saturday's Dominion Post, the daily paper here in Wellington NZ. It doesn't seem to be on the web, but congratulations all the same, London!

Others are watching...and laughing. It's hard to believe city council wasted so much time on this issue, but then I remember what idiots we elected.

Okay, technically, I didn't elect any of them - all my votes went to the losers, whoever they were. Probably wouldn't have been an improvement anyway - sorry, I'm feeling a bit pessimistic and fatalistic today...